Learning how to love
by A changing time
Summary: When Mason reaps the aunt of a college girl who happens to posses the gift of sixth sense he falls for her, but what happens when love starts to blossom between the simple college girl and the dead man? and what will happen when a post it note appears? will it tear them apart or make them stronger?
1. A meeting of the eyes

**((hey guys, so for the past week i have really got into a show called Dead like me, it came out around 2003 i think, and was really good, ive only just started watching it but so far im in love with it and thought id write a fan fiction about it, so i really hope you enjoy it and as always please please review, as it lets me know that you want me to write more. :). Love you all.))**

Yellow, it was the colour of summer, or that's what people thought, but to Reapers it was the colour of hell, or to one person it was.

Mason.

Post it after post it and nothing ever came of it, he would take the soul and help the person cross over, but what did he ever get out of it? He was just a body floating in a salty sea, going nowhere.

And now it was that time again, the morning in the waffle house, sitting in the booth with the four other reapers he worked with, George, Daisy, Roxy and Rube his friends of sorts.

The women he used to chase after and the people he just knew and mixed with, they were a sort of family; a family come together by the hand of death. The post it notes was like a gift.

That yellow paper with a squiggle of words on the front, a persons name, male or female and the time of death and where. How amazing, it all in the end came down to a post it note with a scribble on it. With a familiar sigh he let his eyes wonder over the yellow paper and bit his lip, the place was located in a rather nice part of time, at least he would have a nice time.

His eyes swept over the rest of the table and saw that George was the only one without the yellow sticky note, how convenient at least she had a car, the only thing he had was a bike that he couldn't even ride (well without injury).

"Georgie why don't you come with me if you don't have anything to do?" The look on the girls face showed only boredom.

"Why do you really want me to come with you? Is it because I have a car and you don't?" she asked in the most sarcastic way she could, she didn't even need his conformation. With a sigh she pulled herself up from the booth and moved past the two next to her, pulling out her keys she hung them next to his face and smiled.

"I'm bored today and for some reason I don't mind going on a little trip with you and if you want to get there in the next hour we better go now, but you have to promise me something, have you been drinking?"

Mason was a little taken a back; he had been sober for almost a month, why couldn't his "friends" believe him? With the constant help from his fellow reapers they had been keeping him on the straight and narrow.

"How can you even say a thing, I am offended, you must know me better then that little Georgie" a small smile worked its way onto George's lips and she made her way out of the restaurant or whatever it was. Sighing to himself, Mason ran out of the place hoping that she hadn't driven off without him, and thankfully she hadn't.

Xxx

The street was beautiful, lined with amazing houses the size of mansions with children running around their gardens playing football or tennis, it was 2005 and children weren't safe on their own anymore, but in the amazing street it didn't seem to matter or have any effect on the people or children who lived there, it was a place unaffected by anything bad, only good things lived there.

Nothing bad could ever happen there well except death, it could wipe out anything in a heartbeat, one person who knew that was Amara. Her family had been affected so many times, with the loss of grandmothers, grandfathers, distant cousins, many people, especially in the street, as she sat herself against the wall watching everything, the world going round as she thought. She lived with her aunt while her mother and father lived in another country.

At the age of eighteen she was going to college to become an environmentalist, but the only way to do that was to live away from her new home in Spain where her mother and father had retired too.

A soft sigh escaped the teenagers lips, her aspirations were high but she hated where she was, the house she lived in was far to big for the people who lived there, just four people, her aunt, uncle and her cousin and of course her, her cousin was the same age as her, even went to the same college, but did a different course, they were different people who came from different societies, when it came to college and school. The teenager in question. Amara was a sensible yet attractive girl, not beautiful, yet not ugly, she was plain, yet inner beauty stalked her veins.

As the day passed her surrounding changed, people came and went as they pleased and nothing really happened until a different kind of car went passed, a car that she hadn't seen in the street before, she noticed many off things, she was part of neighbourhood watch so she was told to look out for new things, after all she had only moved a couple of years ago, she was English in an American state, if that didn't give people cause for concern then she didn't know what did.

She had earned her right as a neighbourhood watch person and now she was putting it into action as she watched what looked like a girl her own age get out the car with a man in his twenties who was rather handsome, she felt herself give an involuntary smile as she realised her day might not be so boring.

If only she had seen the yellow post it note in the man's hand, then maybe her day wouldn't have been as bad as it was going to soon get.

Xxx

Mason soon began to feel rotten as they drove through many neighbourhoods towards his destination, all of them were amazing and all he had was a small apartment because he had given over the house that he had reaped from an old women to George and Daisy, he never had got any rewards from daisy, although he didn't really want them anymore.

He had for a while now being going off Daisy, she was beginning to annoy him, she annoyed everyone and she still seemed to love herself, it was something he didn't get but the feeling of being rotten inside got worse and worse until they drove up to the proper neighbourhood they were meant to be in. It was the fanciest neighbourhood in the whole of America it seemed!

"This person must be stinking rich" he muttered mostly to himself but he saw out of the corner of his eye George give the faintest of nod.

He bit his lip as he saw her get out and followed her lead, now all he had to do was the find the poor bugger and try not to fuck anything up like Rube had said. Yet he couldn't help notice from the corner of his eye, the girl on the wall, she looked young, maybe George's age, yet she was beautiful if not plain, with something about her, the way she watched him it was like she could see what he really looked like, not the person that the rest of the world saw.

But that was impossible, right?


	2. A warm hand

**((hey guys thank you for reading my story, please please review and tell me what you think, also im sorry if Mason in this chapter seemed quite OOC in the way that he was talking but i'll hopefully make him more like himself in the next chapter, please please review, thanks guys. xx))**

If reaping could be considered an Art then reapers would be famous, money would be the easiest thing to come by but it was all a dream. A dream that would never come true.

In reality, everything for a reaper was hard, half of them were homeless and the ones that weren't were squatters. They were dead doomed to take the souls of the post it note names. With a yellow post it note in hand that's where they stood.

The reapers ready to take the persons soul before the inevitable happened. A collective sigh came from both of them, Mason and George. They had stood next to a wall looking at the same stretch of road nearly all morning just waiting for the time to come whilst ignoring the many stares they had gotten.

The weirdest of all was the one from the teenager. The girl from across the road, with curly brown hair and blue eyes that sparkled when the light hit them. She was beautiful in a way that people couldn't see. Or that's what Mason thought.

The 27 year old that died chasing the ultimate high, he heard many years ago from Rube that there were humans who walked the earth who had sixth sense, like the people on TV who claimed to be able to see the dead because they had sixth sense, but these people with sixth sense could see how reapers really looked.

He had never met anyone before with the supposed "gift" but-apart from the crazy guy that George had reaped the year before-Rube was so old that he probably had. He couldn't keep his eyes off her and he wasn't sure why, he had met and seen a lot of girls in his time but none of them were like this one girl.

A clearing of a throat shook him from his reverie and he looked down at the sarcastic teenager next to him and followed her outstretched hand to where she was pointing. A women middle aged with brown hair was making her way out the house that the post it note said.

This was always the hardest bit. He watched as the women seemed to gather herself before making her way towards the wall and talking slowly to the teenager sat on the wall before walking across the road and towards the bus stop, brushing past Mason and George as she went. The best thing about the women was that she was easy to identify, she wore a white nametag, well at least it would be an easy reap, sadly he pushed his hand towards her and pretended to accidentally brush her arm.

Apologising quickly he watched as she gave a quick smile and walked for the bus stop but she never got there or well her soul didn't, a car which seemed to have lost control of its breaks, veered off the road and slammed into her, slamming her and the car into the wall behind the women, well that was the end of her, he had to admit it wasn't the nicest of deaths to look at.

He bit his lip as the women appeared next to him, she was in a state of shock it seemed and George was thankfully the one who explained what had happened. He couldn't help noticing the girl out the corner of his eye.

She was shocked yet upset but she was looking straight at the ghost of the women. What was he going to do? He couldn't help the feel of his dead heart swelling at the sight of her sadness, why did he even feel this way about a girl that he didn't even know? Now he wished he was high again.

Xxx

Many hours had past since the first fateful meeting of their eyes, the women-who's name had been Lara-had now passed on after an hour of having everything explained and talking to the teenager-who turned out to be the women's niece-about how everything would be fine. Lara passed on into a blue floating abyss of countryside.

It was all quite beautiful or that's what Mason thought which was weird because if he hadn't have been sober his mind would have been so far gone that he probably wouldn't even had a second thought about it.

He was discovery a whole new world since he had become clean, it was amazing yet scary. He had lived so long in the other world that this new world was rather daunting. Mason now sat in the booth at der waffle hous sitting facing the teenager whose name was Amara. George had left for her shit job at happy time right after the women had passed on, not even giving a second look at the girl named Amara.

"I'm sorry about everything that happened today, I've never met someone like you with sixth sense, it's amazing, what do I look like?" His voice came out a little high pitched with all the excitement that he was feeling an he gave a soft smile to her as she looked up from staring down at the table and looked into his eyes as he suddenly reached out and took her warm hand. Thankfully she didn't seem to flinch away and she gave a shaky smile.

"You look…look young, like your in your twenties, your handsome" she bit her lip as she stopped, she wasn't sure what else to say, her head seemed to be swimming with thoughts that seemed to be jumbling together, she was amazed that she could even think.

She had just found out that there was a sort of life after death or whatever it was that was keeping the handsome man in front of her still breathing, she had never questioned death before or not on the scale that scientists did, to her it had just been death but now it was a whole different world. She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly as she tried to get her head around the days events.

Her aunt was dead and she had sixth sense. Was she dreaming? It sounded like a nightmare but she definitely wasn't dreaming. She would be able to wake up from a dream but this she couldn't wake up from. If her day hadn't been crazy enough she was now sat in a sort of crappy restaurant talking to a reaper who if he wanted he could take her soul.

"Are you going to kill me?" A whisper forced its way out of her now trembling lips and she saw the face of the reaper in front of her change from excitement to sadness.

"Why would I hurt you? Your not scheduled to die and I don't kill people, Im sorry for what you have been through today, here eat something" he pushed the plate of food which seemed to be a full American breakfast-served in the afternoon-towards her giving her a fork as he pushed it towards her, he felt her pain in some way, he had been a reaper for so many years that he knew what it was like to lose someone close to him.

He had been on the earth for many decades and sure over the years he had found friends in many people but of course when he either had to reap them or out live them it wasn't a nice thing to happen, he could never be honest with them, in a way it wasn't a real friendship.

"I understand how you must be feeling right now and Im sorry, but can I ask you something? Before you saw me and George had you ever seen another reaper or even anything supernatural?" his question came out before she could even answer, food was in her mouth as she chewed softly and gave a gulp and looked at him again.

"When I was young, I was in a car crash with my friends, we were on a school bus and a few people had died, before the bus had crashed I saw these weird kind of creatures messing with the controls and messing with the seatbelts and other things to do with how the children and people died, these creatures hovered over a lot of people, they in the end just seemed to stare at me like I was not meant to be there, they left me after that and seemed to disappear as soon as the bus crashed, I remember seeing children who were dead get up and walk away but apart from that I don't remember anything, I remember my mum telling me that I was crazy and if I mentioned it to anyone else then I would be locked away, so for years I kept silent but every time something bad happened I would either see something, I feel something, I don't know. Like today, I woke up feeling weird and then when I saw you and your friend I kind of knew something was going to happen, there was an air about you, like death is following you close behind, I saw what you did, when you touched her arm you took her soul, it was weird, it looked like it was not even attached to her" she seemed to mumble the last few words but she was surprised at herself.

They were the most words she had said in a while, usually she would say only a few things to her aunt, uncle or even cousin, she wasn't big on talking to them, never had been. But this person, Mason, he seemed to be-in the such short time she had know him-bringing her out of her shell and she liked it, she liked the way it felt.


	3. Revealing

**((hey guys, so i hope you like this, im not sure how good this is but ive been writing it for a little while today, anyway, please please read and review it and tell me what you think, sorry if my writing of the speech isn't very good, im not that good at writing speeches, im better at description, so if anybody wants to help me out they can. love you all please please review guys.))**

It is said that emotions are what define people, but what really is it that defines a person, the way they behaved, the way they throw themselves into love?

Biology seemed to be dragging on and on in Amara's case, it had been two months since the accident and two months since she had learned that she could see the supernatural, also two months since she had began dating a reaper, of course none of her friends knew that and also none of Mason's fellow reapers knew, but it didn't matter, it wasn't illegal (well thankfully she wasn't 15).

When she was alone the accident seemed to play out in her head again and again, she had been told by Mason, that a death could not be changed otherwise death would find another way. She had been told about Georgia his fellow reaper about how she had tried to save a little girl but she hadn't succeeded because death seemed to be persistent in the end.

It was weird to think in the end that people's lives came down to a yellow piece of sticky paper. She began to wonder what her end would be like. No bell signified the end of the lesson but people seemed to be walking out, she was so far gone that it didn't seem to catch her, in the end she was sat in a classroom on her own, her lecturer had left as well.

How nice, well at least now she could be alone with her thoughts. It was no secret in her college that her aunt was dead; the women had been a lecturer. Lara had been a chemistry teacher, the dead women had loved everything about it, she had even tried to get Amara to like it, although nobody could stop her from loving the environment, it was the main reason she went there, because the college loved everything to do about the environment.

Her mother and father before they had retired and packed off to Spain had been big environmentalists, that's mostly where she got her passion. With a sigh and a look at her watch, she bit her lip, it was still the morning only nine in the morning and she had already had a biology lecture that had lasted an hour, she had nothing for the rest of the day except plant science around three.

The urge to leave was swelling in her being, where would she go? Mason would probably be free, after all he had no work and he liked to hang out at a place called der Waffle Hous for most of the day. Although his fellow reapers would be there? But did it matter what other people thought?

Of course not, people (mainly her mother) had always taught her not to be brought down by what other people thought, to be your own person and this piece of advice seemed to be good in this situation. With long last look of the room she collected her belongings and made her way out of the college out of the long stretch of corridors and into the warm summers day of America and found the bike rack.

At 19 years of age she had always wanted to ride a motorbike and since her parents had gone her uncle had let her, saying that what her parents didn't know wouldn't hurt them. At least it seemed to work, as long as nobody told them.

It had taken her less then a week to learn how to drive the speedy contraption and less then 2 hours to pass her test, or what counted as a test. Soon the engine seemed to be growling and she adjusted herself and began the ride into town.

Xxx

Der Waffle hous seemed to be quieter the usual as the morning rolled round again, it always seemed to be the meeting place, the same booth with the same people. Rube, Roxy, George and him (Mason). One big happy family.

Daisy had gone a few months ago, she hadn't passed on, she had been needed back in New York and since that was where she had started, they had asked for her and she had gone. It was a weird to think that Daisy was gone, nobody seemed to miss her but he was sure that everybody felt weird not having the vain women around.

At least he got something out of it though, since he had become sober George had let him live with her, having the old bedroom that had been Daisy's, he had never known the perks of being sober could be that good.

He felt himself sigh as Rube said death was once again taking the day off, which meant more paper work, but thankfully, since it was George's day off she had been allowed to take a laptop out with her from work and that's how the morning seemed to progress, laptops being used to do the work, it was 2005 and of course technology was changing, it always would, but at least now they had laptops, as he was typing he felt something stir inside him, it wasn't drugs, as he was still sober which was a record in itself, no it was something else, like something was missing.

His mind soon began to click; it had been hours since he had seen his girlfriend, and they didn't live together, no, she still lived in the mansion house that her Uncle now owned. He had never felt the way he was feeling towards someone before, or course when he had been high and been with a women his brain had gone into an obsession sort of state making himself believe that he was in love, but now since he was free of that, his heart and mind were free to fall in love how they wanted and however long it took, which in his case was only a month, it was two months since he had fallen for the 19 year old college girl, he hadn't said he loved her but there was always a first time.

None of his fellow reapers knew, it wasn't like he didn't want to tell them, of course he wanted to shout from the rooftops that he was with someone and in love, no he hadn't told them, he just couldn't be bothered, they would find out at some point whether it was by him telling them or seeing them together. Amara was the love of his reaper life, he had began to feel regret in his heart about his death, why couldn't his life had been different? Why did he end up dying the way he did? Why couldn't he have fallen in love before he died?

To him it was the best feeling in the world and he was surprised that his friends hadn't seen the difference in him, or they had and they just weren't saying anything. A sound hit his ears and a smile plastered itself across his face, an engine, which was undeniably from a motorbike, was just being brought into the little parking lot thing that was outside.

Well now was a good as any time to let his friends know it seemed. After all they were sitting right next to him. George seemed to be falling asleep while Roxy was helping her and Rube well he was sat at the other booth writing everything like he usually did, the old crown. He let his eyes move from the screen and look outside, there she was. Her hair being pulled out of her helmet and cascading in beautiful brown curly waves down her back, how beautiful she was and she was his.

Xxx

The handle on the door felt heavy as Amara pushed it open slowly, it was weird how she felt at that moment, she felt scared/happy, and how would his friends react to the news? What would they even say? Would they think that she was to young for him? Of course not, she had been told that George was only eighteen yet she had been out with older people.

Shaking her head slightly she made her way towards him, she could see him now; he was looking up at her with a smile on his face and eyes that seemed to show everything. An immediate smile broke out onto her face and her feet no longer seemed to drag on the floor as she was soon stood at the booth. What to say? She felt more eyes on her as Mason pulled her down onto the seat and hugged her. She had always been a slightly awkward person around people that she didn't know.

"Mason, do you want to tell us something?" the annoyed voice of the older women-that could only be Roxy that Mason had told her about-seemed to carry across towards them.

"This is Amara, she has sixth sense and she is my girlfriend" his voice seemed to carry across to tables as a middle aged man-who could only be known as Rube-sighed and moved away from his writing.

"Mason people with sixth sense are extremely rare and should not be manipulated by death, what are you doing with her? Are you high again?" Rube's voice seemed to dig deep into her as her smile was washed off her face. What was she doing? A sound from in front of her shook her and she looked down to see a little grey creature just like the ones she had seen on the bus when she had been little.

"Their gravelings" a voice whispered in her ear and she slowly bit her lip as a small grey hand worked its way towards her as she let her own hand connect with its as the reapers around her looked on

Fascinated.


End file.
